Friday, January 31, 2014

Are there
“incomplete” areas or conditions in your life - times, events or relationships
in which life is hindered or “incomplete”? This may involve a person, group of
people, situations or even your self.

How does
this “incompleteness” or hindering manifest and/or change the nature of
functioning? What is involved?

There may be
a number of these; I encourage exploring/writing of as many as you wish but keep the writing
about each of them separate.

For each of
these, can the situation be resolved in a skillful and appropriate manner by
you - and if so, what would do that? If not, how not?

What is your
best guess of what would occur as a result of your skillful and appropriate
actions? How would this "new circumstance" be for you, for them if there is a “them”?

I am
emphasizing “skillful and appropriate” so as to exclude a situation such as where we hold a secret, and resolve this by telling someone this secret, for
example about something we did, maybe even something we did to them, many years ago, which their
knowing about now will result in pain or suffering for them now. Or a situation where we
tell them about what we believe are their faults or inadequacies or that of
others. These are examples of self-centeredness, not skillfulness!

Friday, January 24, 2014

Intention and commitment are fundamental to sitting, fundamental to ongoing practice, fundamental to our life. In one sense, no need for intention or commitment. Intending to be who we are is extra; how could we need to commit to being who we are? It is adding a head to our head. Nevertheless, because of the many ways we find of missing who we are, of not being as we are, of insisting on not being as we are, our intention and commitment to be who we are is important and even necessary to enable us to not live out of reactive habits that miss our life, to enable and support us to be who we are.

“One Body Three Treasures” is the truth of our life. Dogen says complete perfect enlightenment, perfect universal enlightenment, is the Buddha Treasure. This is exactly our life - each one of us from the beginning; paraphrasing Huangbo, Buddha isn’t more, beings are not less. Is this so for us? If not, how not?

Each encounter from morning to night is this true nature, this fundamental emptiness. How do we miss it? Being self-centeredness is missing this; the holding to like and don’t-like, to body-mind conditions, to me and not-me, being attached to and clinging to some and wanting to get rid of others, all of these narcissistic habits.

The Practice Principles remind us of this, “Caught in self-centered dream…holding to self-centered thought” – these are reasons we miss this treasure that is our life, this Buddha Treasure, this Dharma that is who we are.

So what is “our life” that we can miss?

Clarifying life is clarifying the Three Treasures, Buddha, Dharma, Sangha. Clarifying this allows appreciating joyousness; clarifying allows us to notice and reflect on when and how we miss our own life.

In our tradition we clarify three aspects of the Three Treasures; “One Body Three Treasures.” (Ittai Sanbo in Sino-Japanese, also translated as “Unified Three Treasures”), “Realized Three Treasures,” and “Maintained Three Treasures.” In formal koan practice these are treated as koan when practice has “matured”, though in a way this is the very first practice, this is lifelong ongoing practice.

Speaking or writing about this is different than clarifying this as life practice or in dokusan. We shouldn’t mix up explanations and clarifying; nevertheless, explanations can be valuable and important as supports, just as it is important to know what to do when sitting - and yet this isn’t the same as sitting, as we know very well. I like the analogy of recipes, cooking and eating. We could read many recipes but we will still be hungry. Our mouth might salivate while reading the recipe, but we will still be hungry. We must prepare the ingredients, cook and eat the food to satiate hunger.

The various ways in Zen tradition of exploring this are antidotes for the self-choosing habits and tendencies. We use words like liberation, Prajna, wisdom - just this fundamental One Body Treasures that we are. Our encounters from morning to night are nothing but this perfect way; please appreciate each encounter, see and do what supports appreciating this life.

We often don’t believe the words and teachings of ancestors; therefore our intention of practice is to notice when and how we don’t believe it. In the midst of thought-emotions which we want to pursue, habitually reacting to all sorts of coming and going, our practice includes noticing that even these are the opportunity of zazen, being present, experiencing. These habits of thirsting, attachment and clinging are where and how intention-commitment can support and manifest our life. Not in trying to figure them out, but to simply notice this and make the appropriate and skillful practice effort.

Even without spelling-out the importance of intention and commitment, we all know their importance. This is true in personal relations, in social and business relations and many other realms. If we are in a formal relationship, whether a marriage, a partnership, and so forth, we make certain commitments - despite the fact that all sorts of desires, interests might arise. We maintain a basic commitment to the relationship, and therefore do not follow after every desire and interest that appears. Or else we do follow after all sorts of arising desires and reactive habits, and then have the consequences of reactive habits possibly distorting and destroying relationships.

We know that following after attachments, thoughts and feelings results in suffering, harm and stress - because we become entangled in distorted views, harmful functioning, in the midst of this perfect way that is our life. Though we use words like enlightenment, awakening or liberation, it is important to clarify that though it seems we lack something, from the beginning we lack nothing. And yet, this has to be clear and true for us. If and when this is not so for us, right here our intention and commitment are needed - because otherwise we miss our life. Despite the fact that we can’t miss it, we can drink and not taste what we are drinking. The myriad forms of functioning are, this moment functioning is, this perfect way that we are, this fundamental true nature, fundamental emptiness, fundamental wisdom - the wisdom that functions as our life.

Sometimes we talk about life as ongoing change. It is ongoing change that is unborn-undying, this cause and effect manifesting our life. And yet, when we function as self versus other, when we function as “I like” versus “I don’t like”, this Dharma functioning doesn’t seem to us to be our life - because then ongoing change that is this present moment becomes filtered through our unwillingness to be present, our constriction of this life, “permanent” and “impermanent”, wanting and rejecting.

This is why I say zazen is being just this moment. The intention to be just this moment allows us to be just this moment, is being just this - because we are always so, we are this cause and effect moment right now. As Dogen says, from the beginning, practice is in enlightenment. We are always this, despite the fact that often we refuse to be this, insist we are other than this. And in our refusing to be this, we miss what we are. To repeat, practice is being who we are. Intention is being intimacy of ongoing change, commitment manifests intimacy of ongoing change. We can restate intention and commitment as raising Bodhi-mind, embodying the Bodhisattva vow.

Dogen says purity and undefilement is called the Dharma Treasure - purity and undefilement is the nature of this reality that we are. What is purity? When Dogen says purity, it is not purity as opposed to impurity, it is not undefiled as opposed to defiled. What do we believe is impurity, defilement? Can impurity be pure, can defilement be undefiled? This is important to explore because then we are no longer trapped by or subject to reactive habits based on what we think is impure, defiled. Reality is cause-effect manifesting. And what is cause-effect manifesting?

This perfect way that we are is mysterious… mysterious because this is not encompassed, can’t be encompassed, by the ways that we want to analyze and figure it all out. Many things can be analyzed; the liquid in this cup can be analyzed chemically, physically, and in all sorts of ways, but that doesn’t encompass the water-universe, much less the drinking, tasting, being satiated.

“I take refuge in Buddha, I take refuge in the Dharma, I take refuge in the Sangha.” Or we can state it as “I go to the Buddha for refuge,” “for guidance.” Often this is taken only in a dualistic way, such as referring to the historical Shakyamuni Buddha; the refuge of the One Body Three Treasures is committing to who and what we are - “being one with Buddha.” Being one with what is - being one, because we are that. We can use the form of intention and commitments to enable us to go beyond what gets in the way of being who we are. Intention and commitment are the sparkplugs and engine which supports and manifests this life we are. Ongoing practice is ongoing intention, ongoing over-and-over commitment now – re-newing intention now, re-newing commitment now, manifesting this One Body Three Treasures we are.

Dharma is the Teaching, the law of cause-effect - law in the sense of the law of gravity. The Sangha is the harmony of Buddha and Dharma, or the harmony of who we are and the nature of this functioning, this ongoing law of reality. Cause-effect is who we are; from the beginning we are this perfect way. To explain, we are not any fixed self-nature, not self-centered, because we are this ongoing change, this interdependent interbeing. Ongoing change is Buddha nature, our nature. Empty means that we are able to manifest according to cause-effect right now - because we are empty, we can be this moment.

I bring these matters up to help clarify our capacity to go beyond reactive habits and the fact that there is no beyond to go - just ceasing believing and acting at the effect of solidifying reactive habits, emotion-thoughts. Clinging and attaching - that is solidifying. It is not arising that is the problem. It is clinging, attaching, thirsting, the various reactive habits which we “do” that result in missing who we are. And when we miss who we are there is stress, suffering, dissatisfaction; because despite the fact that we are perfect wisdom, perfect functioning, despite that we are this mysterious universe appearing and manifesting form and conditions, when we attach and cling we get into trouble and suffer.

Please allow life to support the intention to be who we are - experiencing and manifesting this joyous life - this life practice opportunity.

Thursday, January 23, 2014

"It's clear that texting impairs our ability to walk. If it didn't, we wouldn't have so many war stories of walking into trees/each other/street lights/stationary objects...."

"We walk much slower when handling a cell phone (even more so while texting than reading), and we're not very good at sticking to a straight line. Not surprisingly, we tend to keep our heads down, our necks immobile, and our arms locked at our sides. We don't swing our arms, which can be a crucial part of staying balanced while moving.

Overall, we behave in a way that tries to optimize typing rather than walking, that's more geared toward keeping that little screen stable in our field of vision than keeping ourselves stable."

Tuesday, January 14, 2014

"Growing Up Unvaccinated

I had the healthiest childhood imaginable. And yet I was sick all the time.

I am the ’70s child of a health nut. I wasn’t vaccinated. I was brought up on an incredibly healthy diet: no sugar till I was 1, breastfed for over a year, ...And yet I was sick all the time....

As healthy as my lifestyle seemed, I contracted measles, mumps, rubella, a type of viral meningitis, scarlatina, whooping cough, yearly tonsillitis, and chickenpox. In my 20s I got precancerous HPV and spent six months of my life wondering how I was going to tell my two children under the age of 7 that Mummy might have cancer before it was safely removed.

So the anti-vaccine advocates’ fears of having the “natural immunity sterilized out of us” just doesn’t cut it for me. How could I, with my idyllic childhood and my amazing health food, get so freaking ill all the time?

...I find myself wondering about the claim that complications from childhood illnesses are extremely rare but that “vaccine injuries” are rampant. If this is the case, I struggle to understand why I know far more people who have experienced complications from preventable childhood illnesses than I have ever met with complications from vaccines. I have friends who became deaf from measles. I have a partially sighted friend who contracted rubella in the womb. My ex got pneumonia from chickenpox. A friend’s brother died from meningitis.

Anecdotal evidence is nothing to base decisions on. But when facts and evidence-based science aren’t good enough to sway someone’s opinion about vaccinations, then this is where I come from. After all, anecdotes are the anti-vaccine supporters’ way: “This is my personal experience.” Well, my personal experience prompts me to vaccinate my children and myself. I got the flu vaccine recently, and I got the whooping cough booster to protect my son in the womb. My natural immunity—from having whooping cough at age 5—would not have protected him once he was born....

If you think your child’s immune system is strong enough to fight off vaccine-preventable diseases, then it’s strong enough to fight off the tiny amounts of dead or weakened pathogens present in any of the vaccines.

But not everyone around you is that strong, not everyone has a choice, not everyone can fight those illnesses, and not everyone can be vaccinated. If you have a healthy child, then your healthy child can cope with vaccines and can care about those unhealthy children who can’t.

I would ask the anti-vaxxers to treat their children with compassion and a sense of responsibility for those around them. I would ask them not to teach their children to be self-serving and scared of the world in which they live and the people around them. (And teach them to love people with autism spectrum disorder or any other disability supposedly associated with vaccines—not to label them as damaged.)

Most importantly, I want the anti-vaxxers to see that knowingly exposing your child to illness is cruel. Even without complications, these diseases aren’t exactly pleasant. I don’t know about you, but I don’t enjoy watching children suffer even with a cold or a hurt knee. If you’ve never had these illnesses, you don’t know how awful they are. I do. Pain, discomfort, the inability to breathe or to eat or to swallow, fever and nightmares, itching all over your body so much that you can’t stand lying on bedsheets, losing so much weight you can’t walk properly, diarrhea that leaves you lying prostrate on the bathroom floor, the unpaid time off work for parents, the quarantine, missing school, missing parties, the worry, the sleepless nights, the sweat, the tears, the blood, the midnight visits to the emergency room, the time sitting in a doctor’s waiting room on your own because no one will sit near you because they’re rightfully scared of those spots all over your face."

"Measles was considered eliminated at the turn of the millennium. Now it’s back, thanks to the loons to refuse to vaccinate their children. Of all the things to be nostalgic for, infectious diseases probably don’t make it onto many lists.

However, if you happen to pine for the good old days when measles was an active public health threat, I have good news for you. The anti-vaccine crowd is bringing it back.

This is not some inconvenience to be laughed off. Measles is a highly-contagious illness caused by a virus. It usually presents with a combination of rash, fevers, cough and runny nose, as well as characteristic spots in the mouth. Most patients recover after an unpleasant but relatively uneventful period of sickness. Unfortunately, about one patient in every 1,000 develops inflammation of thebrain, and one to three cases per 1000 in the United States result in death."

Sunday, January 12, 2014

Photo-Op: Hail to the Chief

One of the world's largest trees....

"When the giant Sequoia nicknamed the President was a sapling, the Hittite Empire was crumbling and Troy was still standing. More than three millennia later, its cinnamon-colored trunk is long enough to skewer two blue whales laid tip to tail. But the President isn't even the tallest, the oldest, the widest or the largest in terms of trunk volume (the measure most commonly used in dendrology) of the treasures in California's Sequoia National Park, which includes the biggest trees on Earth. Instead, the President holds the record for world's largest crown, with some two billion individual needles. Michael Nichols's remarkable composite image (above) shows the President in all its glory. The photographer assembled this wintry centerfold from 126 individual images taken using three cameras hoisted by pulleys from another tree. It took him three weeks to make, despite the tree's immobility. The tiny scientists climbing amid the foliage give a sense of the President's towering scale. Though slender in profile, it
has branches long enough that the figure at top, who stands on a limb that extends toward the camera, appears larger than the one on the ground. Mr. Nichols's photo spans two pages in 'Wildlife Photographer of the Year: Portfolio 23' (Natural History Museum, 160 pages, $39.95), a volume mostly devoted to more dynamic forms of wildlife from around the world....."

Saturday, January 4, 2014

Here is an interesting review of research regarding doing good, and attempts to elicit good through rewards, punishments and more. The beginning research in this area, including brain imaging and stimulation, challenges notions that we often take for granted, even ideas of self, intention/free-will and body-mind.

"It turns out that doing the right thing voluntarily is very different from doing it to avoid punishment. Recent research even reveals a basis in the brain for this distinction..."After a review of the research findings, the review ends with the following:"Einstein once said that you can't simultaneously prepare for war and peace. There's something analogous here. This key brain region can't simultaneously prompt you to do the right thing because it's the right thing and because otherwise you're going to get your butt kicked."For the full article with interesting comments see:http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303453004579290730664013954?mod=WSJ_Books_LS_Books_5

"The brain stimulation had very different effects depending on whether students were voluntarily following the norm as opposed to when they were threatened with punishment.

When the threat of punishment was present, brain-boosting stimulation caused students to give away more money, while brain-reducing stimulation made them give away less money. In contrast, when giving was voluntary, boosting and reducing brain stimulation had the opposite effects, making the students give away less money or more money, respectively....

"Here, brain stimulation to the exact same region has opposite effects on cooperative behavior that depend entirely on context," said neuroscientist Joshua Buckholtz of Harvard University, who was not involved with the study. Buckholtz suggested that the context of having a punishment threat or not could be changing the connectivity between the rLPFC and other brain areas.

The idea that the brain could be manipulated to make people more compliant with social norms has far-reaching implications for the legal system. "If we know this mechanism, we might think about ways to influence it to help people who have trouble following norms," Ruff said. But it's not as easy as simply zapping a criminal's brain to make them comply with the law.

"There's a big difference between acute modification in the lab and a long-term change in the way people represent and process social norms in nature," Buckholtz said."

This "voluntarily" being present intimacy, intending actions - this most basic human functioning - this bodhisattva functioning, is our life practice opportunity.

Wednesday, January 1, 2014

When we clarify appropriate skillful action it is important to be aware that it is just now - and that ongoing change means that appropriate is changing and skillful is changing. Below are two recent examples in our national politics which we can explore and ponder:

"Millions of American property owners get flood insurance from the federal government, and a lot of them get a hefty discount. But over the past decade, the government has paid out huge amounts of money after floods, and the flood insurance program is deeply in the red.

Congress tried to fix that in 2012 by passing a law to raise insurance premiums.
Now that move has created such uproar among property owners that Congress is trying to make the law it passed disappear....."

"It is buyer's remorse by the lawmakers," says Stephen Ellis, who monitors the ups and downs of flood insurance for a group called Taxpayers for Common Sense. "I mean, they did the right thing," he says. "And then that kind of outraged some of their constituents, who have howled quite loudly, and now they're talking about undoing those reforms."

Ellis says subsidized insurance from FEMA means taxpayers are footing part of the bill for people who choose to live in flood zones. Moreover, he says, artificially low premiums actually encourage people to rebuild where they probably shouldn't.

As Ellis sees it, Congress is saying, in essence, " 'Why didn't you protect us from ourselves?
Why didn't you tell us we were doing responsible reforms that were actually going to cost people money and have a bit of pain involved because that's what has to happen?' "

For another area where skillful and appropriate may no longer be so due to changing conditions and actual implementation, with suggestions for what would be skillful appropriate actions now, here are excerpts from an article with the citation following.

"Forty years ago, on Dec. 28, 1973, the Endangered Species Act became law. If you want to celebrate, you'll need to close your eyes to hard truths.

A law intended to conserve species and habitat has brought about the recovery of only a fraction—less than 2%—of the approximately 2,100 species listed as endangered or threatened since 1973. Meanwhile, the law has endangered the economic health of many communities—while creating a cottage industry of litigation that does more to enrich environmental activist groups than benefit the environment.

How did things get so turned around? Blame the bureaucrats of the Endangered Species Act. They have administered the law poorly and flouted provisions designed to promote good science and good sense....."

"One reason the Endangered Species Act has spun out of control is that the federal agencies that decide whether to list a species....no longer base decisions on what the law calls for: data....."

"How to get the Endangered Species Act back on track? A couple of straightforward reforms would have a big impact, and they could be implemented by the administration through regulatory change, without the need for legislation. First, reinstate the difference between regulations for threatened and endangered species, so that discovery of the former is welcome news of an opportunity to engage in creative environmental protection but not a threat to a landowner's livelihood.

Second, require that each biological opinion and listing determination comes with a data chart that scientifically documents the threats and the consequences for the species of not being listed....."

Are there actions, habits and patterns in our life which were once appropriate and skillful but may no longer be so?

We do not face the same multiple and conflicting pressures and rigidity that the political groups in the above stories face - and yet we act based on many different forces.

Reactive habits may have once been skillful, appropriate, but are no longer so. This "no longer so" is a significant characteristic of reactive habits, and a characteristic which often results in harm and suffering - even despite intentions to do good, and the belief that this is (or at least was) appropriate and skillful.

As today is January 1, 2014, this is a good time to reflect on past and present - being present as this ongoing change that is our life.